This paper is dedicated to Donna Campbell who was a Healthcare Support worker in Cardiff. Donna died of Covid-19 on 10th of April. She was two years above me in school in Port Talbot. Both Donna and I represent the absence of women from examinations of steeltowns #SWOS20

I’m Dr Ashley Morgan. My presentation is about my experiences of growing up opposite the Port Talbot steelworks in the 1980s to demonstrate the difficulties of being a woman in a very male orientated environment. PT is a place like no other. Romanticised in fantasy #SWOS20

the steelworks inspired the opening sequence of Bladerunner. It has produced globally famous actors: Michael Sheen, Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins, and comedians Rob Brydon and Lloyd Langford, art and culture. Only men appear to be successful #SWOS20

It has a nostalgic t-shirt company, set up by an ex-steelworker, San Portablo, celebrating local expressions like ‘Shunk’ and has links to local identity, football and community. It has a Banksy. Today it is a positive town with good proximity to cities, clean beaches, #SWOS20

affordable housing and employment. It has a theatre and its cinema is a listed building. Pride emerges from the men who work incredibly hard in the steelworks. Yet PT is like no other steel town. It has commonalities with Redcar and Kitakyshu in proximity to the sea, #SWOS20

but the location of the works meant that the M4 motorway connecting PT to the M4 was pushed inland, bisecting the town, making it an island in South Wales which appears to be inhabited by men of steel. Research on steeltowns focuses solely on male subjects, employment #SWOS20

post-industrialization, economics & class. Absent is any sense of the impact of these things on women’s experience which I wish to address in this paper. Growing up opposite the steelworks was toxic smelly, noisy, dirty it breathed like a live thing a palpable presence #SWOS20

80s economic & political atmosphere was toxic, it was very hard and male. There was nothing to do but wait to leave. 1984 Miners Strike - Steelworkers came out in solidarity with Miners. At the picket line near our school, I remember fights between police and strikers #SWOS20

PT had a reputation for hardness and its own football hooligans Pure Violence Mob ‘one of the toughest little towns anywhere and its Sandfields estate is officially one of the roughest in Europe’ (Jones & Rivers, 2002: 56) Arguably, the steelworks defined masculinity #SWOS20

Masculine pride was at stake.I think of PT steelworks as a conduit for hard masculinity, failure to comply with obvious gender norms was a threat to this identity – if men were hard, then women were soft. Men would draw attention to women to reinforce their masculinity #SWOS20

For me the 80s were defined by wariness and then fear of men: flashers, gropers, almost constant catcalling, a man who ran the local newsagents was a paedophile, everyone knew that. Hard masculinity was so vital to everyone’s identity in PT. Sexual harassment was rife #SWOS20

I wanted invisibility but I had a boy’s name I looked like a boy, I sometimes got called a lesbo. I tried to hide my femininity, but I still present as a woman on the margins of femininity with my short hair. It didn’t pay to be educated in PT people went to university #SWOS20

& didn’t usually come back. PT was anti-intellectual and I found growing up there incredibly oppressive, always symbolised through the male steelworks. I realise oppression has driven me all my academic life. I have embedded it into my academic research on masculinity #SWOS20

I am a feminist academic who researches into masculinity to overcome oppression. It’s cathartic to express myself when I didn’t get a chance to growing up in the shadow of the hard industrial town. Through my research I challenge the male orthodoxy of where I am from #SWOS20

I want to just add that although things might have changed for the better in Port Talbot, women are still not particularly celebrated, there are no renowned women actors, writers or artists, which suggests that women still occupy the space of absent presence #SWOS20 Thank you